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John Bel Edwards announces he is running for governor in 2015

Posted on February 20, 2013 at 9:53 AM

John Bel Edwards

Rep. John Bel Edwards, D-Amite, takes the floor as house in 2012. Edwards Wednesday said on a Baton Rouge radio program he intends to run for governor in 2015.
(Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

Louisiana House Democratic Caucus chair
John Bel Edwards of Amite announced
on the Jim Engster show Wednesday morning that he intends to run for
governor of Louisiana in 2015. The Amite attorney is the first Democrat to jump
into the governor's race and one of the first candidates to explicitly say he
will likely be a candidate when Gov. Bobby Jindal's second and final term
expires.

Following his radio interview, Edwards
said he had not intended to formally announce his candidacy Wednesday but
wanted to answer honestly when asked about his potential ambitions. There has
been speculation that the Amite attorney might make a run for the governor's
mansion since at least the end of last year's legislative session, when he led
a number of challenges to bills backed by Jindal.

Louisiana needs "a healthy dose of common sense and compassion for ordinary people," Edwards said after the interview, before criticizing the Jindal administration for recent budget cuts.

"We need to understand that cutting is not the answer in and of itself," he said.

While he said he firmly intends to run
for governor, Edwards also noted that the 2015 governor's race is still a long
ways off and he's still gauging the political landscape.

"I believe the support is out there,"
Edwards said. "But I don't believe it will be easy."

Edwards, now in his second term in the
state House, has been a vocal critic of the Jindal administration in recent
years on a variety of issues including spending cuts to the state's hospitals
and higher education system. He was particularly critical of last year's
education overhaul, leading the unsuccessful effort to block Jindal
administration bills that established a statewide voucher system and imposed
new rules for teacher tenure.